Weather Forecast

Woodbury's finest minds

There is nothing like the mind of the child. That was certainly illustrated on Jan. 27 at the Royal Oaks Elementary Science and Young Inventor's Fair.

Children in kindergarten through sixth grade displayed projects of every type -- everything from volcanoes to weather to electricity to even bubble gum.

In addition to the projects that were displayed, the sixth graders also demonstrated an egg-drop experiment in order to find a way to drop an egg without breaking it.

The Science and Inventor's Fair is a voluntary activity for these students, so primarily the ones who like science are the ones who are involved.

Third-graders Nicole Virgin, Alexa Condon and Sydney Danielson said coming up with a topic for their project, in this case crystals, was easy because it was something they already had an interest in.

"I already had my rock collection," Virgin said. "It is a cool way to show the different kinds and colors."

The girls said putting together their project and doing the research was a lot of fun, because they got to learn more about all the different kinds of rocks and the different colors they come in, and it only took a couple of days to put everything together.

"Science is really interesting," Virgin said. "I like it a lot and I'm good at it."

Where some students took things they already had an interest in, others, like kindergartener Grace Stevenson, took inspiration from other places.

Stevenson built a Mount Saint Helen's volcano and demonstrated the eruption of it since it was the same project her sister did.

"My sister did this project and I thought it was really cool," she said. "It's cool to see how the lava comes out."

Stevenson said building her project was a lot of fun because she knew she was going to get to show people how it works and know that she did it herself.

"It's really fun because you get to do art while still doing science."

Amber Kispert-Smith has been the schools and Afton reporter at the Woodbury Bulletin since 2008. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota. She previously worked as a reporter for Press Publications in White Bear Lake.